It has long been understood that weapon barrels have to withstand the pressure of the discharging ammunition and provide enough stiffness for sufficient accuracy. This need can be met simply by a high wall thickness of the barrel. With increased wall thickness, the maximum pressure load the barrel can bear is improved as well as its stiffness by the larger diameter and subsequent increased second moment of area. These advantages are offset by the barrel weight, which should be as low as possible to ensure swift weapon operation, especially in manually supported weapons like rifles and shotguns. Furthermore the barrel should allow repeated accuracy at consecutive shots, e.g. as found in automatic weapons. This is hindered by the heat up of the barrel which leads to thermal expansion and stress in the barrel and results in a loss of accuracy. Accordingly an ideal weapon barrel is stiff and light at the same time and heats up slowly and/or has great cooling efficiency by an advantageous surface-to-volume or more accurately an improved surface-to-heat capacity-ratio.